Harry Browne on Irish Times 'half-truths'

Pressure of Times
It's particularly infuriating to see Irish Times editorials spouting half-truths about Rossport when that paper has probably the best national reporter on the story, Galway-based Lorna Siggins. Her reports and analysis have been fair and well-informed, but the leader-writers don't seem to read them.
Even when other papers could no longer resist the ''local heroes'' line of last summer and autumn, the Irish Times was begrudging. And last week, when Shell spokesman Andy Pyle suggested the company's plans might be open to negotiation, the paper's editorial essentially counselled Shell to buck up and push ahead ''with dispatch. This project needs to move forward.''
It was not made clear in the leader why the Irish Times is in such a hurry, except perhaps that it annoys the paper's higher sensibilities to see objectors' ''inflammatory language and extreme and improbable scenarios'' causing delays. Since the Irish people have no stake in the project in terms of shares or royalties, and since we're not exactly out of gas, the paper can scarcely be motivated by public concerns.
Even Shell is hardly troubled by the hold-up. It's got the gas, after all, and will eventually get it to shore somehow. Meanwhile the trajectory of global energy prices means that for the company the offshore field is like a bank that pays the highest interest rate in the world.
In this context, the widespread media sympathy for Shell, especially after Pyle's wee act of contrition, is both logically astonishing and all-too-predictable in light of the press's prostitution to PR and its built-in bias toward corporate interests. (One of the CPI report's bravest sins was to point out that Tony O'Reilly is among those with interest in offshore exploration.)

Beware the backlash
The impatient Irish Times leader-writer's unfortunate choice of words (''inflammatory'' indeed) typifies the sickening insensitivity to what the Rossport protesters clearly regard as a matter of life and death, rather than a matter for ''dispatch''.
Nonetheless, while corporate PR generally has the desired effect on the sheep in the national media, for popular movements it can actually be encouraging and galvanising: if Shell is stepping up its game, it's because the company knows it has to – the local resistance remains strong. The Shell to Sea campaign will take the PR offensive as a compliment, and keep working away, not only resisting the pipeline, but highlighting the dangers and damage already being caused by work at the terminal site, eg to local drinking water.
The protest does not require the support of Irish Times editorials, never exactly required reading in Erris anyway. The other snobs and protest-haters in the media may be tired of this story, but it will not go away.

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Blast from the Past

Sir, – Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte’s response to Fintan O’Toole’s article (August 16th) on our offshore licensing terms and his intention to issue new licences under the current licensing terms is disingenuous in the extreme (Opinion, August 18th).